At 152 hours and going, I can only say that Dragon Age Inquisition is a game that had promise. But rather than doing something creative withAt 152 hours and going, I can only say that Dragon Age Inquisition is a game that had promise. But rather than doing something creative with that potential, DA:I decided that it had to be a great game without being creative. The end result is a game that wastes your time.
Having finished the game and its expansions, by my estimate, that 152 hours could be shortened into 50-60 hours maximum. The extra 100 hours of fetch quests, horde modes, unrewarding loot system, busywork crafting system and endless meaningless collectibles just really doesn't do any good to further the story and give the player enjoyment for every hour spent playing this game. Apparently, nowadays, the Inquisitor is everybody's b1t.ch. The story somewhat works, but it is dumb in many places and the villain is cartoonishly evil. Bioware's decision to make the mages, templars and grey wardens "corrupt" all of a sudden is so lazy, hollow and out of place. Apparently, all of them just decided out of nowhere to hate the world, side with evil and start destroying everything so you'll spend tens of hours fixing their sh1t. It was clearly done this way to just add more padding and hours into the game. it's very uncharacteristic of the mages, templars and grey wardens, judging by their behavior from the last two games. And for them to be corrupted all at once, all of a sudden, is laughable. You can totally remove these conflicts and the story will still work great. You also better be high on political correctness and identity politics because the game makes almost everybody in the game blatantly gender-fluid and if you want the kingdom of Orlais to find peace and prosperity, put all the gay people in power because all the straight people are murderous and ruthless. Easy.
If you want the best items in the game, don't bother exploring, just craft them. Apparently ancient artifacts, weapons and armor of great power and legend are easily outclassed by items crafted recently by some guy. Very immersion breaking. If you are obsessed with crafting, the Black Emporium DLC will add more for you. If you like empty spaces and more of the same boring grind, Jaws of Hakkon works. The Descent is a good DLC that adds a meaningful story and David Hayter's voice to the mix. Overall, it was a good DLC. The Trespasser is without a doubt the best DLC of the lot, and gives the game a proper ending, though sadly, still lacking compared to Dragon Age: Origins.
Overall, Dragon Age Inquisition is a very grind-driven time sink. It completely succeeds in consuming hours and hours of your time meaninglessly, especially in Nightmare difficulty where enemies become very grindy and take so much time to kill. Great story points are separated by hours of grind. If you enjoyed Dragon Age: Origins, stop right there and do yourself a favor; just forget the next two games ever existed.… Expand
